Top 10 things in Sports you wish were still around.

2. The ECAC Holiday tournament at MSG.

It was my birthday gift each year -- dinner at that (pretty generic) steakhouse across from the Garden (Charley O's?) and tickets to the tournament. Saw Bob McAdoo with St. Bonnie's, the hugely Afro'd Artis Gilmore with the freak-flag Jacksonville team, and Rick Mount with Purdue.

 

Toots Shor's

Jack Dempsey's

Lindy's

Stillman's Gym

The Polo Grounds

Ebbets Field

Six-day bicycle races at the Armory

 

Sheesh. How the hell did '99 Duke lose to that group?

A note to Final Four teams: Don't spend the night before the National Championship partying on the beach.

 

1. Sam Mills
2. Walter Payton
3. Kay Yow
4. Tom Landry
5. Ron Francis (playing days)
6. Keith Jackson (still on the mic)
7. Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick on The Big Show (SportsCenter was never better than when these two were in Bristol ... suppose I'll get scorched for this ...)
8. Basketball players who understood passing and teamwork.
9. Fewer corporate sponsors and many fewer ridiculous corporate demands and mandates.
10. Newspapers that actually cared about putting out a quality sports section.

 

1. "The human drama of athletic competition.." ABC's Wide World of Sports. I grew up on that.
2. The Big Red Machine.
3. Reds-Dodgers rivalry from the 70s.
4. Pete Rose, in his prime, before it all went so horribly wrong.
5. Baseball pants that come to just below the knee, instead of looking like pajamas, with visible socks.
6. Shorter basketball shorts
7. Browns-Bengals rivalry, before they both went so horribly wrong
8. Steve Rushin in SI
9. Charley Finley because sometimes it's good to have someone around who's nuts.
10. Robert Clemente

 

One add: Tastes Great/Less Filling ads featuring likable retired athletes. Something tells me there aren't many Ueckers, Bubba Smiths or Ben Davidsons left in sports.

 

Which has been replaced by "Mike Pereira tries to justify the call."

 

Less stars yeah, but the Huskies were the better team. Kevin Freeman and Ricky Moore did everything.

 

1. Modesty

2. Honor

3. Aussie Rules Football on basic cable

 

No particular order.

10. NBA on CBS and pregame CBS music.
9. "You are looking live."
8. NFL coaches who didn't wear headsets
7. The National
6. Billy Packer (no, not really)
5. NBA's greatest games on ESPN at 4 p.m. with Dan Patrick hosting.
4. Having to wait two days to find boxscores for West Coast games and stealing the paper from my dad to find the Lakers' score.
3. NBA old-timers game at All-Star Weekend. Tommy Heinsohn in short shorts guarding Johnny Kerr.
2. Complete games.
1. The Baseball Bunch.

 

Who replaced Zombie Vonnegut with Zombie Grantland Rice?